Where life at home as a wife and a mother can be challenging, inspiring, and lovely.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Learning To Wash Dishes

I grew up with a stay at home mother but she did not invest her days in teaching her children. She did the job of maid, cook and chauffeur but she did not pass along her knowledge to her children so that we would have the skills that we needed when we were grown up. She did not do this maliciously. Her generation left the home and went to work. She was against a swelling tide by staying home and her job was minimized by society. She did not realized how important she was in teaching and passing on knowledge.

When I left home I had never cooked anything. I had never baked. I had never done a load of laundry and I had no basis for understand the complexities of home management. Bless my husbands heart for staying with me through all my failed baking attempts. For all the "red" clothes that mysteriously came out of the washer and for all those nights of eating the same things over and over again without a single word of complaint.

My grandmother who is in her late 70's was at our home on Christmas day and helped me to wash dishes. As her wash rag swished in the water and around the cup she started to laugh. "Do you remember when you came to my house and I taught you how to wash dishes?" She said. "You were so worried about getting your hand down into the bottom of the glass. I told you to worry about the rim. That's where all the germs are!" As she was relaying this story I remembered it as if it was yesterday. The warmth of that moment has been with me ever since. It takes time, love and patience to teach our children the things that they will need to know. It also takes an awareness of what our children are capable of. I think we put off teaching them many things because we think they are to young. In truth they are extremely capable of learning and doing household chores. Enjoyment is an entirely different matter.

I will never forget spring cleaning with my daughter Emily. As I waxed poetic about how much I loved cleaning and the smell of the spring air, she dusted and listened. Finally when I took a deep breath she said, "Well, that just goes to show how different people can be!"

About Me

Its crazy, its wild, its beautiful, its more than I ever imagine and I am thankful to God for each and every day that he gives me to experience this joy. He truly "wrecked my life" and I am loving every moment of it!

Quotes I Love

If we would have a true home, we must gaurd well our thoughts and actions. A single bitter word may disquiet the home for a whole day; but, like unexpected flowers which spring up along our path full of freshness, fragrance and beauty, so do kind worlds, gentle acts and sweet disposition make glad the home where peace and blessing dwell. No matter how humber the abode, if it be thus garnished with grace and sweetened by kindness and smiles, the heart will turn lovingly towards it from all the tumults of the world, and home. Unknown....Home sweet home is the sphere of wedded womans mission. To make one such home a sea of holiness and happiness, to fill one such sphere with an influence so sweet and sacred, such an object, such a goal would be deemed by an angel worth an incarnation upon earth.